It made me think about the sunny one bedroom apartment J-man and I lived in when we first moved to Sydney. It was on a busy road in Cammeray, across from an RSL and a modern apartment block called Modus. We would say ‘Modus’ in a robot voice.

Looking back, it’s funny to think how young we really were. I broke down over a plate of hash browns soon after moving in. J-man accidentally scraped a work car along the side of our garage, taking off some of the wood frame. We had a washing machine so old and awful we had to load buckets of water into it. Our borrowed couch was yellow and quickly faded and attracted weird oily stains. I wore terrible clothes to work and, so green and nervous, was sure I was going to get fired everyday.

It was also where we grew up. J-man decided to quit his desk job and start his own business in music management. I became tougher and made far fewer phone calls home. We became good cooks and Sydney adventurers. We came home to it excited and changed after J-man proposed. On the deck one morning we set a date to go overseas for six months and I rushed inside and called my boss’s secretary to make an appointment to quit my job.

On the weekends we would have breakfast at a cafe in the middle of a strip of shops a few blocks away. It was so cheap and served an amazing sweet and slightly chilli tomato sauce with bacon and eggs. It was the perfect start to a Saturday and a lovely, delicious routine.

One day we walked up the road to find the cafe had closed, with a sign on the door saying “Sorry. We won the lottery”.

Postscript: I accidentally left the stove on and burnt my jam while writing all this down. Serves me right for being such a sentimental baby.